An Overview of Machine Learning in Orthopedic Surgery: An Educational Paper.

The growth of artificial intelligence combined with the collection and storage of large amounts of data in the electronic medical record collection has created an opportunity for orthopedic research and translation into the clinical environment. Machine learning (ML) is a type of artificial intelligence tool well suited for processing the large amount of available data. Specific areas of ML frequently used by orthopedic surgeons performing total joint arthroplasty include tabular data analysis (spreadsheets), medical imaging processing, and natural language processing (extracting concepts from text). Previous studies have discussed models able to identify fractures in radiographs, identify implant type in radiographs, and determine the stage of osteoarthritis based on walking analysis. Despite the growing popularity of ML, there are limitations including its reliance on "good" data, potential for overfitting, long life cycle for creation, and ability to only perform one narrow task. This educational article will further discuss a general overview of ML, discussing these challenges and including examples of successfully published models.

Application of Natural Language Processing in Total Joint Arthroplasty: Opportunities and Challenges.

Total joint arthroplasty is becoming one of the most common surgeries within the United States, creating an abundance of analyzable data to improve patient experience and outcomes. Unfortunately, a large majority of this data is concealed in electronic health records only accessible by manual extraction, which takes extensive time and resources. Natural language processing (NLP), a field within artificial intelligence, may offer a viable alternative to manual extraction. Using NLP, a researcher can analyze written and spoken data and extract data in an organized manner suitable for future research and clinical use. This article will first discuss common subtasks involved in an NLP pipeline, including data preparation, modeling, analysis, and external validation, followed by examples of NLP projects. Challenges and limitations of NLP will be discussed, closing with future directions of NLP projects, including large language models.

Educational Overview of the Concept and Application of Computer Vision in Arthroplasty.

Image data has grown exponentially as systems have increased their ability to collect and store it. Unfortunately, there are limits to human resources both in time and knowledge to fully interpret and manage that data. Computer Vision (CV) has grown in popularity as a discipline for better understanding visual data. Computer Vision has become a powerful tool for imaging analytics in orthopedic surgery, allowing computers to evaluate large volumes of image data with greater nuance than previously possible. Nevertheless, even with the growing number of uses in medicine, literature on the fundamentals of CV and its implementation is mainly oriented toward computer scientists rather than clinicians, rendering CV unapproachable for most orthopedic surgeons as a tool for clinical practice and research. The purpose of this article is to summarize and review the fundamental concepts of CV application for the orthopedic surgeon and musculoskeletal researcher.

Applying Deep Learning to Establish a Total Hip Arthroplasty Radiography Registry: A Stepwise Approach.

BACKGROUND: Establishing imaging registries for large patient cohorts is challenging because manual labeling is tedious and relying solely on DICOM (digital imaging and communications in medicine) metadata can result in errors. We endeavored to establish an automated hip and pelvic radiography registry of total hip arthroplasty (THA) patients by utilizing deep-learning pipelines. The aims of the study were (1) to utilize these automated pipelines to identify all pelvic and hip radiographs with appropriate annotation of laterality and presence or absence of implants, and (2) to automatically measure acetabular component inclination and version for THA images. METHODS: We retrospectively retrieved 846,988 hip and pelvic radiography DICOM files from 20,378 patients who underwent primary or revision THA performed at our institution from 2000 to 2020. Metadata for the files were screened followed by extraction of imaging data. Two deep-learning algorithms (an EfficientNetB3 classifier and a YOLOv5 object detector) were developed to automatically determine the radiographic appearance of all files. Additional deep-learning algorithms were utilized to automatically measure the acetabular angles on anteroposterior pelvic and lateral hip radiographs. Algorithm performance was compared with that of human annotators on a random test sample of 5,000 radiographs. RESULTS: Deep-learning algorithms enabled appropriate exclusion of 209,332 DICOM files (24.7%) as misclassified non-hip/pelvic radiographs or having corrupted pixel data. The final registry was automatically curated and annotated in <8 hours and included 168,551 anteroposterior pelvic, 176,890 anteroposterior hip, 174,637 lateral hip, and 117,578 oblique hip radiographs. The algorithms achieved 99.9% accuracy, 99.6% precision, 99.5% recall, and a 99.6% F1 score in determining the radiograph appearance. CONCLUSIONS: We developed a highly accurate series of deep-learning algorithms to rapidly curate and annotate THA patient radiographs. This efficient pipeline can be utilized by other institutions or registries to construct radiography databases for patient care, longitudinal surveillance, and large-scale research. The stepwise approach for establishing a radiography registry can further be utilized as a workflow guide for other anatomic areas. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Diagnostic Level IV . See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.